Rdio to pay artists $10 for each subscriber

One of the biggest cost centers for streaming audio providers is royalties paid to artists and music publishers. Music streaming company Rdio has announced a plan that will see it pay musicians a significant amount of money for each new subscriber the artist brings to the streaming service. Rdio launched an Artist Program this week that will pay musicians as much as $10 per subscriber.

Looking a little closer at the Artist Program, it appears to be aimed at independent musicians who are into self-promotion. Participating artists can use social media to share songs of their own creation or from other artists via links. The song links are trackable and can be embedded via social media and elsewhere. Each new subscriber created by clicking these embeddable links will get the artist $10.

Rdio says that it will provide participating artists with a dashboard showing real-time stats on where and how they’re getting their fans to sign up for the service. Rdio is specific in that the new Artist Program will not replace the existing royalty arrangements it has with music labels and artists. This new Artist Program is a complement to its existing arrangements.

Artists who have a popular and loyal social media following could rack up a decent amount of money with this new program. Specific requirements an artist needs to meet to be allowed to participate in the Artist Program are unknown.

“There is no art without artists,” said Rdio’s founder Janus Friis. “As part of this industry, we know a business that doesn’t reward its most important contributors is a business that has to change. The innovation of the Internet should not be a barrier to the success of music artists; it should allow them to be even more successful.”

[via Fast Company]


Rdio to pay artists $10 for each subscriber is written by Shane McGlaun & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.


BBC currently working on their own music streaming player

If you’re a fan of BBC‘s iPlayer, then you’ll be excited to hear that they’re working on a similar type of player, but this time it will focus solely on music. It’s said to be called Playlister and it will allow subscribers access to hundreds of thousands of songs without paying any additional fees.

Details are still yet to be figured out completely, but it’s said that the service will be similar to that of Spotify and Rdio, where users will be able to stream music online. The BBC has talked about the idea of creating their own streaming music service in the past, but they’ve had trouble getting the rights to do so from various labels. However, it’s said that the company will be talking with Spotify, Apple, and other music streaming service providers to see if they can avoid this problem.

While Playlister is still in the discussion stages, it’s scheduled to launch either later this year or early next year. And if everything goes smoothly, hopefully the new service will see the same success that iPlayer is currently earning. iPlayer has been a huge success for BBC, and it’s actually changed the way a lot of people watch television.

iPlayer was used more than 196 million times in a three-month period this year. The London Olympics alone accounted for as many as 51 million requests per week. Playlister could easily see the same success. However, just like with iPlayer, the upcoming music service will probably not be expanding outside the UK any time soon.

[via The Telegraph]


BBC currently working on their own music streaming player is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.


New Slingbox hardware lands at Best Buy

I’m unsure why exactly a company wouldn’t announce new products, sending them directly to retail outlets instead. If customers don’t know the new products are available the chances of them buying them would seem more unlikely. However, more than a few companies never say a word about new products, and they just turn up on store shelves. This is exactly what has happened with a pair of new Slingbox models.

The new models are the Slingbox 350 and the Slingbox 500. Both the devices stream content at up to 1080p and have redesigned chassis. Like all other Slingbox devices, the point of both new products is to allow you to placeshift your content recorded on your home DVR to your computer or mobile device.

The Slingbox 500 has an HDMI input and an HDMI output, a remote control, USB storage, and apparently an on-screen wizard for set up. The device is also the first Slingbox to have integrated Wi-Fi. One side effect of these new devices being unannounced is we don’t know what all the features are.

You’ll notice in the photograph that there are some price tags underneath each of the devices, which are apparently for different items. Zatznotfunny reports that Best Buy wouldn’t sell either device so perhaps it’s not so much that they were both unannounced as someone place them on the shelves too early.

[via Zatznotfunny]


New Slingbox hardware lands at Best Buy is written by Shane McGlaun & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.


iPhone 5 Pandora rival still possible as Sony sets snag

A lovely bit of news mixed with a bit of a downer for the first owners of the iPhone 5 has come down today from the NYPost where they’ve got an inside track on deals between Apple and Sony/ATV for streaming music rights. It appears that though Apple had been working on a competitor for the most popular streaming music radio app Pandora, but ran into a last-minute snag in negotiations with Sony/ATV. The Sony/ATV group is the world’s largest music publisher and is currently in the process of buying EMI Music Publishing, this eventually placing them in control of 2 million copyrights that span the globe.

Apple’s negotiations with Sony/ATV were reportedly down to the per-song rights fees which Sony/ATV asked to be higher than the standard tenths of a penny per stream standard. The NYPost also noted this week that “executives close to the matter” have said Sony/ATV will be pulling out of the two main copyright associations Ascap and BMI by January of 2013. If they do indeed pull out of these groups, licensing songs by businesses across the map will be more difficult as they’ll have to go through Ascap/BMI as well as Sony/ATV instead of working with a one-stop-shop, as it were.

Apple’s service would act as a main competitor for Pandora as it would be able to lower costs between free streams and final song purchases as they’ve already got a music store that can facilitate purchases. With iTunes, Apple is already a massively beastly music-toting group, but with a free radio streaming service that could give a more “human” way to the music discovery process, they could move on to a new level.

When word that a Pandora competitor was in the works for the iPhone 5 earlier this year, Pandora company stocks dropped significantly. This new news source notes that “They didn’t put whatever they needed to put in the app,” and that “It seems they were rushed into it.” This same source notes that music streaming from Apple on devices like the iPhone 5 is still a possibility for a software update months in the future – stay alert!


iPhone 5 Pandora rival still possible as Sony sets snag is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.


Dish Network in talks with Viacom to offer Internet-based channels

With the massive adoption of Internet streaming for movies and TV shows many cable companies are worrying that changes may spell doom for the industry. While many mainstream cable companies don’t like the thought of streaming Internet content or smaller channel bundles, Dish Network is said to be talking to networks about offering channels over the Internet. Dish Network is said to be in talks with networks, including Viacom.

Bloomberg reports that five people familiar with Dish Networks plans have tipped that the satellite provider is in talks with Viacom to offer channels such as MTV over the Internet. Dish Network is also said to be in talks with Univision Communications, and Scripps Networks Interactive. Scripps owns the Food Network and HGTV.

According to sources, Dish Network and the television networks would offer an online product known as an over-the-top service charging a lower price to allow a smaller bundle of channels to be viewable on computers or tablets via the Internet. If the reports are accurate, Dish Network’s effort would be the biggest attempt so far to create an online service with live channels. Other online streaming services such as Netflix and Hulu don’t offer live programming, though Netflix offers some original programming.

Reports indicate that Viacom would be willing to sell smaller bundles of its individual networks such as Nickelodeon and Comedy Central a higher than what it currently charges for its full range of programming. The move is also seen as a way for Dish Network to reduce one of its biggest cost centers, which happens to be sports programming. ESPN reportedly gets as much as $5.13 monthly per subscriber, whether subscribers watch the network or not. The smaller channel packages will allow users not interested in sports to choose packages that don’t offer those channels.

[via Bloomberg]


Dish Network in talks with Viacom to offer Internet-based channels is written by Shane McGlaun & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.


Users watching more online videos on TVs than computers

With the rapid growth in media-streaming set-top boxes for televisions, it’s said that more people are using their TVs to watch online videos instead of their computers. Market research firm NPD Group reported that televisions are now the “primary screen for viewing paid and free video streamed from the Web.”

According to their latest survey, 45% of Americans are using their televisions as their primary display for watching online video content, while only 31% said they primarily used their computers to watch online videos. It’s almost a scary statistic if you know that just last year, 48% primarily used computers for online videos while just 33% used televisions.

However, it’s also not too surprising. The growth of different set-top boxes has led to a new revolution when watching online streaming content. Many companies have their own solutions, including Roku, Boxee, Google, and even Apple. Hard drive manufacturers like Western Digital and Seagate also have set-top boxes of their own.

What’s also unsurprising, is that Netflix came out on top as far as the most-used service for watching online content on the television. 40% of consumers use Netflix, while 12% use Hulu Plus, and 4% connect to Vudu. What about you? Have you made the transition to watching online video in the living room instead of on the computer?

[via BGR]


Users watching more online videos on TVs than computers is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.


Cloudee simple video sharing hits open beta with iPhone 5 app

Boxee has opened its Cloudee video sharing service up to public beta, with desktop, web, and iPhone apps to streamline distributing videos you might not want to go public with on YouTube. Running in closed beta since June, Cloudee attempts to make small-group video sharing more straightforward, currently offering unlimited online storage and a simple way to distribute access to Facebook friends.

The desktop tools – available for Windows and Mac – make uploading clips simple, with support for m4V and mov files among others. There’s also an iPhone client, from which videos can be directly uploaded and then shared with people from your Facebook friends list, contacts on Twitter, and those in your address book.

Videos are set to private by default, and there is more granular control over who can access them; if you’ve ever tried to use YouTube’s relatively arcane private sharing system, that could be very welcome. The iPhone app is also iOS 6-ready and fits the 4-inch iPhone 5 screen.

At the moment, storage is unlimited as Boxee irons out the Cloudee bugs. From the full launch, however, there’ll be premium accounts for extra storage, though the company says nobody’s videos from the beta period will be deleted.

You can download the iPhone app here, and the Windows and Mac clients here. Cloudee says an Android version should arrive in 2013.

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cloudee_web_ui
cloudee_desktop_app


Cloudee simple video sharing hits open beta with iPhone 5 app is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.


Cable cloud gaming to challenge Xbox, PS3 and Wii U in 2013

The Xbox 360 and PS3 may face cable boxes edging in on their gaming turf if AT&T, Verizon, Time Warner and others have their way, with the promise of cloud gaming delivered direct to TVs bypassing traditional consoles. Trials are set to begin later in 2012, insiders tell Bloomberg, with broad commercial launches in 2013 at the earliest; games would be more advanced than the simple casual titles currently offered by some smart TV platforms.

That would rely on the sort of cloud gaming technology already seen from startups like OnLive and Gaikai, where remote servers do the heavy lifting in terms of graphics crunching and powering environment-rich gameplay, and freeing up local devices to merely display the results of that processing. Rather than demanding that each subscriber have a $200-300 console, cable services could use internet-connected set-top boxes to display the streamed gameplay with minimal latency, navigated via simple controllers.

Unsurprisingly, none of the cable companies have been willing to admit they’re building up to an actual launch, though they’re making the right noises. AT&T says it is “exploring unique ways to offer cloud gaming services to our TV and broadband customers,” while Cox echoes that sentiment and claims it too is “exploring” cloud possibilities.

Although all are used to on-demand content delivery, they’re taking no chances getting cloud gaming right. Experts Playcast Media Systems, CiiNOW, and Agawi have all confirmed that they are in talks with US cable companies, though refuse to say which. Some of the cable firms are exploring using smartphones as controllers, further reducing the potential cost of entry to subscribers.

Meanwhile, console manufacturers aren’t standing still as smart TV solutions challenge their home turf. Microsoft already offers video content with Xbox LIVE, and will add SmartGlass to spread multimedia across multiple screens. More recently, Nintendo revealed Nintendo TVii, its new on-demand and TiVo-integrating home entertainment system based on the upcoming Wii U console, which will turn the GamePad tablet-styled controller into an advanced remote.


Cable cloud gaming to challenge Xbox, PS3 and Wii U in 2013 is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.


Fox Broadcast app now available to Xbox Live customers with Dish and FiOS subscriptions

FOX Broadcast app now available to Xbox Live customer with Dish and FiOS subscriptions

Xbox Live frontman Larry Hryb (aka Major Nelson) took to his blog on Tuesday to announce that Dish and Verizon FiOS customers can now download the Fox Broadcast app for Xbox 360 to stream next-day Fox programming. In order to use this free app, you’ll need a paid Xbox Live Gold subscription. In addition to keeping you up to date with recent episodes of Fringe and Family Guy, this new app also includes access to legacy series such as House and 24. Like most things Xbox, the Fox Broadcasting app features Kinect integration, because everything is “better with Kinect,” right?

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Fox Broadcast app now available to Xbox Live customers with Dish and FiOS subscriptions originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 25 Sep 2012 21:11:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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B&N reveals NOOK Video for movie and TV shopping

Barnes & Noble has revealed NOOK Video, its upcoming movie and TV show store for NOOK devices, smart TVs, tablets, and smartphones. Set to launch in the US this fall, with a UK debut by the holiday season, NOOK Video will offer both streaming and download options, integrating with the NOOK Cloud for viewing on multiple devices.

B&N will also launch NOOK Video apps – there’s no word on platform support, but a safe guess would be iOS and Android given the bookseller already offers ereading apps for those – which will support streaming content. There’ll be seamless resume too, allowing users to pause playback on one device and then pick up from the same place on another linked to the same account.

Those users with existing DVD and Blu-ray content will – as long as it falls under the UltraViolet umbrella – be able to access digital copies of those movies and TV shows through their NOOK device or the NOOK apps, without having to purchase a separate digital version. Both standard- and high-definition titles will be on offer.

HBO, Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, STARZ, Viacom, Warner Bros., and Walt Disney Studios are all onboard with content for NOOK Video, though pricing for individual titles is yet to be confirmed. More partners are on the way, B&N says.


B&N reveals NOOK Video for movie and TV shopping is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.